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I recently watched the 4 Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher era Batman films again and I thought I might as well give my opinion on them and how my experiences were with the films, because why not? I’m hoping to just do a quick casual post on this, this won’t be a full blown article, or at least that’s not the intention…
I thought the original Batman film was pretty good, I liked Jack Nicholson’s incarnation of Joker in the film, and at least now it gave me some idea as to the Joker came to be, because everything else I’ve seen that involves the Joker, he just kind of appeared.
One thing I found of note was how robotic Batman seemed to be, he never turns his neck for some reason or another, and has to turn his whole body to look side to side, and I’m not sure about back then, but now it looks daft! At least to me it did… That’s not to say the film was, the film’s was really good, and I would recommend it to any Batman fan, although as for other folk, I don’t know if it’s aged well enough…
Batman Returns (Or “Batman: Il Ritorno” as it says on my case/blu-ray, since it was bought in Italy), features catwoman and the penguin, the latter of which is played by Danny DeVito, who I thought was perfect for the role, and he was. I really wanted to get my hands around Penguin’s neck when I was watching this, and that, to me, is a good indicator that he played the role well!
I loved as well the little detail added that 3 of his fingers on each hand are deformed and are stuck together to look like a flipper, that and other details is what made me see him as another gimmicky enemy in the Batman universe, which is a good thing, that’s what I love about Batman, the enemies have gimmicks to them, like the Riddler, Scarecrow and Calendar Man! When I was playing through Batman Arkham City, Penguin just seemed like a generic enemy, which I wasn’t a fan of, but this film makes him fit right in with the other villans in the universe!
Also, they say this film was really dark and gritty, but it didn’t seem like it to me, especially in a scene where Batman is in the Batmobile looking for Penguin, the radar made a noise a penguin makes every time it detected something, which I couldn’t help but laugh at!
Although I really enjoyed the film, maybe more so than the first film, and is a film I’d definitely recommend to anyone who is familiar with Batman!
Batman Forever is probably my favourite of the 4 films… Yes, really. The film, while canonically makes no sense and the tone just doesn’t fit the series at all, was so much fun to watch!
The villians for this film were Two-Faced, played by Tom Lee Jones, and The Riddler, played by Jim Carrey.
The film was much sillier than the last 2 films, and I can totally understand why people hate the film, but I personally really enjoyed it, and dare I say, Tom Lee Jones’ Two-Face is my favourite version!
I love how the 2 villans acted just crazy and very cartoony, which would usually end in a disaster, but just didn’t here, it worked so well!
I’m certain that if I watched this as a kid, I would have absolutely loved it!
Like I said before, this is my favourite of the quadrilogy, and I’m probably the only one. Would I reccomend it? I don’t know. If you like whacky and crazy things, then sure, give it a watch, but to purest Batman fans… I don’t know… If you can find it cheap, sure, why not? Ifd you happen to buy the entire quadrilogy, like I did, then you may as well, you have the film, so why not?
At first viewing a long time ago, I hated this, but I recently had a conversation about some friends, and the subject of the 90s Batman movies came up, and I mentioned Batman & Robin being awful, and they said it wasn’t that bad, and said that since I loved Batman Forever, I should give Batman & Robin another try.
Watching Nostalgia Critic’s review years ago, I probably came into it the first time expecting to hate it, after all, even Joel Shumacher and George Clooney hated working on it, and people told me that it even showed in the behind the scenes footage, but maybe I should be more open minded this time.
So is Batman & Robin really that bad? In my opinion, no.
One thing I loved about the movie are the over the top, physics defying fight scenes. They are absolutely ridiculous, and that’s what makes them so great! Some moments just made me burst out laughing, but in a good way.
My favourite clips were where Mr. Freeze’s gun was stuck up high, and so Mr. Freeze literally threw a guy up there to knock it down! The other was where Freeze got a vine, and somehow swung upwards towards a high platform!
Both scenes completely defy the laws of physics and are stupid, but that’s why I love them so much!
A lot of the scenes, though, were pretty cringy and made me briefly want to turn the movie off.
Generally, though, the movie felt compelling enough for me to keep seated. I wanted to keep watching to see what happens next, or how the movie would conclude.
I guess I should talk about the casting.
George Clooney makes for a good Bruce Wayne, but not a very good Batman.
Arnold Schwarzenegger I think, in a serious movie, could actually make for a good Mr. Freeze, and I think even here, his perfomance has a nice charm, especially the icy puns! But then he lets his performance slip at times. (Huh? huh? Icy is the reception really cold, but why?)
I was surprised Uma Thurman was in the movie, I, and probably most people, know her from doing Kill Bill later on. (I really need to watch those movies again!)
This is spoiler territory, so scroll down to the next bold text to avoid it being spoiled.
One of the most unironically well done aspects, in my opinion, was Alfred’s storyline, the movie does a good job seeding in that something is wrong with him, then finding out he has the same disease as Mr. Freeze’s wife, but at an earlier stage, which has a cure available, and only Mr. Freeze has discovered it. The movie actually explains this pretty clearly, yet the Nostalgia Critic review completely left it out, making it look like the writers didn’t think it through.
Mr. Freeze’s arc also made sense, he’s only doing what he can to save his wife, but after thinking Batman killed his wife, he wants to take his anger out on the world, and freeze it over. You can sympathise with him, at least to an extent. Losing a loved one makes one go crazy, right?
I suppose I should also address the elephant in the room: Bat nipples and Bat asses.
All I have to say there is that the film also sexualises women a lot, Batgirl definitely has the Bat ass and as close to Bat nipples as probably possible without increasing the age rating.
Mr. Freeze has scantily clad female assistants, and Poison Ivy is obviously supposed to be sexy, too, right? No seriously, as an asexual, I can’t tell.
Overall, I think Batman & Robin, if you can find it cheap, actually isn’t a bad movie, I think you could certainly do worse!
I figured that for completion’s sake, I’ll include my thoughts on what we know of Batman Triumphant, which got cancelled.
The plot from what I can read, it was to feature Scarecrow as the main villan, with the Joker making appearances as a hullicination thanks to Scarecrow’s fear toxins, and Two-Face, Catwoman and The Riddler were to also to make appearances.
Sound familiar?
That sounds a lot like the game Batman: Arkham Knight, which came out 16 years later!
The script for this film has apparently been leaked online, but I have searched for hours to find it, but have had no luck.
From what I heard, this was Schumacher’s attempt to make up for Batman & Robin, and go back to Batman’s darker roots!
That sounds awesome! I am so upset that this never happened!
Though, if this movie, happened, would we have ever got the Dark Knight trilogy? Who knows.
There are books about other cancelled projects related to this series, and I plant to get those one day. When I do, I’ll be sure to make a follow-up article!
All in all, I had a great time watching these films! Definitely reccomend them! You can get them cheap on VHS, DVD or Blu-Ray!